Through the Lens of Worship - Momentary

Through the Lens of Worship - Momentary

 

From Drop Box

 

If you have read my past entries, you would know that this hasn’t been the easiest year. I know I have been vague, and I have done so to protect myself and others from comparing trials.  Yes, this year hasn't been easy, but it is a year full of promise. 

 

In my last entry I shared again the verse that is my promise for this year. I needed to remember it that day. And divinely, this entry is basically the sequel, and we all love sequels right?? So, I needed to be reminded of the promise that new things are coming and the old has passed away. This year new things have come, mostly in the form of trials, it seems. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit inspired James to write that we should count them all joy. OUCH! But WHY?! That’s the last thing I want to do, I want them to GO AWAY! But I also realize that I am not of this world and there are difficulties in this life for those who choose to follow after Jesus our Lord and Savior. I made that decision and the principalities of darkness and the ruler of this world are not thrilled.

 

Over and over this last weekend God reminded me of His Everlasting Faithfulness to me and all mankind. I need to know this personally. I find that I get sad or angry and generally feel pretty bad about some of the trials I am in-- very far from counting them as joyous occasions. But I know that the God, that counts me worthy of the gift that is eternal life through the sacrifice of His perfect Son and the freedom to walk in victory, is a loving and tender Father. He does not enjoy seeing me struggle and least of all in that which I cannot control. I know that He desires my very best as promised in Jeremiah 29:11.

 

One of my most beloved scriptures has become 2 Corinthians 4:17-18. As I was putting the verses on the photo above, I read verse 16, and it was exactly what I need. And so it goes:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4: 16

Then Paul goes on in chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians to talk about the assurance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior. Without that resurrection, what would be the point of this life??? Second Corinthians 5 says this:

“For we know that if your earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven… For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.”

This life hurts, disappoints, leaves one wanting, abandons, and seems plain empty and void of any purpose without Jesus. The intent of God when creating man was to have fellowship with Him. That relationship was severed when Adam and Eve committed the first act of disobedience to God. God was not content to leave it that way. His answer is in Jesus. Jesus binds us to God. We have access to the Father, through Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. It is a painful but beautiful reminder that God extended Himself and gave of Himself to be in relationship with us. I am not hated, beaten or being tormented for my beliefs. I have it really easy here in Small Town, U.S.A. in the grand scheme of things. I should count it joy when I get to share in Christ’s sufferings because I will probably never really have an inkling of what He went through as long as I live.

God is faithful. When we seek Him with our whole heart, He is found by us. He does not want to be unknown and just out there being God. He desires to have a relationship and to comfort and strengthen and show Himself as the Almighty. I take heart knowing that these pains and trials are momentary.